BUSH ADMITS MISLEADING ON WMD

BUSH ADMITS MISLEADING ON WMD

Less than a year after declaring there was "no doubt the Iraqi regime
continues to possess the most lethal weapons ever devised," President Bush
and the White House began to openly "back away from its WMD assertions
today." The New York Times reported, "White House officials are no longer
asserting that stockpiles of banned weapons would eventually be found" after
their weapons inspector, David Kay said he "doesn't think [WMD] existed"
after the 1991 Gulf War.

The backtracking is reverberating throughout the Bush administration. While
Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations last year that "our
conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and
500 tons of chemical weapons agent," he said this weekend that it could
actually be "zero tons." Powell told the United Nations in 2003 that Iraq
"can produce anthrax," that it might "have produced 25,000 liters" and
showed a video of an Iraqi plane that dumping "2,000 liters of simulated
anthrax" as proof, but he now says they might have produced no anthrax at
all.

Similarly, Vice President Dick Cheney, said before the war, "there is no
doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction...to use
against our friends, against our allies, and against us," but now says the
war was about Iraq's "efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction." The
vice president also cited a classified report his own Administration has
labeled "inaccurate" as the "best source" of proof that Saddam Hussein and
Al Qaeda were linked.

In response, the Administration is beginning to blame the intelligence
community for the WMD fiasco, and planning an internal "review of prewar
intelligence." Administration ally Kay concurred, arguing "I think the
intelligence community owes the president [an apology] rather than the
president owing the American people." Despite Mr. Kay's assertions, experts
who knew the record of U.N. inspections knew that finding no WMD "was always
a strong possibility...but Bush administration officials never acknowledged it."

Earlier reporting found that senior Administration officials deliberately
"bypassed the government's customary procedures for vetting intelligence,"
and the White House set up a separate intelligence apparatus, the "Office of
Special Plans," to "cherry-pick intelligence that supported its pre-existing
position and ignoring all the rest." For example, the president's well-known
declaration in last year's State of the Union, asserting that Iraq "sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa," remained despite CIA demands
to remove such allegations from his speech.

I agree with FTM. How the heck can I trust anyone when you are as biased and misleading as you claim the Presient to be? here's a few tips.
1) dont put the title in all caps. Make you look like a propagandist n00b
2) present the information clearly from a non affiliated web site. unlike some of my more conservative counterparts, I accept reports from CNN, NBC, etc. When you quote from something like "the daily misleader" alarm bells immediately go off in logical peoples brains.

Well in Toads defense, he copied and pasted it exactly as it appear at the misleading site, caps and all. It still doesn't make the headline or the premise anything other than a lie. I believe the thread was probably posted here for the same reason it was posted there... to mislead and give ammunition to those incapable of discerning reality from fiction.

There is no evidence that Bush mislead on WMD's... an he CERTAINLY did not "admit" to doing so as the thread and article title indicate he did.

It's becoming harder and harder to tell if Bush's detractors are just doing this in hopes that those unable to think rationally will begin to believe it... or if they themselves have slipped into a perpetual state of delusion?

Wallie x you have called everyone on this board that does not agree with you a liar. I for one am tired of it. I have called George bush a liar and his cabinet members a bunch of liars and I stand by my statements but I have not called anyone on this board a liar.
If this administration wants to admit that they are budgeting 35 billion dollars anualy for an intelligence network that can only plagerize a students report then it is ibvious it is time for a change of administrations.

Originally posted by ClubMed If we can all agree that this war was not about WMD's then we can start to focus on more important issues than the lies about WMD's.

CM that really depends on where the lies genesis was.

If it was Iraq lying to saddam with feigned reports made by people in his camp, then there is no lies on our side. Intel of fake programs with will look just like real programs from an intel prospective if you do not have infiltrators in the ranks of the program.

Now as said before if it is found that the US fabricated the evidence then I think heads should roll. As it is with people on the ground and iraqis in custody it is still difficult to get a handle on things. Imagine doing it from tapped phone calls and rumors and disgruntled former workers.

I'm not sure what your upset about whitebeard, except that you're offended that others use the same criteria for defining a "liar" as you do. There is no evidence that Bush has lied to or mislead the country or the Congress. It's obvious that Bush made some inaccurate statements, and it's obvious that Saddams capabilities were over-estimated, but there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Bush was not basing his decisions and statements on the best inteligence available at that time.

If someone wants to find fault with the inteligence gathering capabilities and decision making of the Administration, that's thier perogative, but if they're willing to make the baseless accusation that Bush lied, then they're fooling themselves...some might even say that they are lying to themselves.

IT APPEARS TO ME THAT ANYONE CALLING BUSH A LIAR IS IN FACT A LIAR THEMSELF. ALL OF THE EVIDENCE INDICATES THAT BUSH ACTED APPROPRIATELY IN OUR NATIONAL INTERESTS IN LIGHT OF THE INTELLIGENCE HE WAS RECEIVING. THE FACT THAT WMD HASN'T BEEN FOUND DOES NOT GIVE LIBERALS THE RIGHT TO REVISE THE HISTORY REGARDING THIS INTELLIGENCE. THE ONLY REASON THE WORD "LIAR" IS USED IS BECAUSE THEY (ULTRA-WACKO-LIBERALS) ARE TRYING TO GET REVENGE FOR CLINTON BEING CALLED A LIAR. WHAT A BUNCH OF STINKING CRYBABIES. GET OVER IT.

I disagree with you analysis as to why they do it. Many of the rank and file use it because the leaders use it. And they genuinely believe that he is a liar. Their leaders use it because they hope to sway the simple minded into believing that he is a liar. It is a baseless claim and does in fact make their leaders liars. But the rank and file are simply the mislead. They fail to see the info before them they are looking through a bias. For if Bush were not a liar then they must admitt to themselves that their leaders like Kennedy, and Michael Moore (their king) have mislead them.

I will not say that Bush did not lie or possibly selectively look at the data. But the jury is not in on that one. If you are to call someone a liar you must prove it. Merely proving that the premise was false does not make a liar. For the democratic and liberal powerful to state with conviction that Bush is a liar is simply wrong at this point. At best they should say the matter needs further investigation.

Now of course for the democratic and liberal powerful to keep up their claims they must now call Kay a liar. They also need to call the UK government liars, MI6 liars, CIA liars, Pakistani Intelligence Liars, Germany Intelligence liars.

It is amazing how many liars these pure as the driven snow democrats find with out a shred of evidence that any of these folks KNOWINGLY made tried to mislead people for their own benefit.

Liar is a powerful word and should not be used lightly. But of course the politically powerful and the lowly surfs now throw it around at anything they do not agree with.

(First off, let me point out that I'm not talking about just WMDs here, but four years of observed behavior.)

I don't have to prove anything to call someone a liar (or anything else for that matter). I make my own judgments based on my knowledge of the facts at hand. Or . . . in Dubya's case, I just look into his beady shifting little eyes and I know. He's a dishonest man . . . a liar. See, it's simple! Anyone can do it!

At the same time, I'm perfectly willing to admit that I'm wrong. He may be stupid. Or he may be both.

Again, you're free to draw your own conclusions, (even if it's based on the size and position of a mans eyes), but you better have something more substanitive than physical charactaristics and baseless speculation as "proof" of misconduct if you expect to be taken seriously.

I am not sure he should say he was wrong or apologize for going to war over a situation where the enemy put forth the appearance of doing wrong (as stated by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair). The intel was not incorrect really (not as far as intel goes) These paper programs were genuine in Saddams mind, and many in the Iraqi community, Intel leaked out about these paper programs through many sources.

Intel being what it is cannot always be corroborated on the ground in closed countries. The only corroboration was Saddam’s actions which continued to give the impression that wrong doing was going on. The mere fact that Saddam did not fully comply with resolutions, restricted access to scientists, and did not proclaim his innocence right after destroying the programs to relieve sanctions give all the impressions of guilt. Coupled with information leaked to the intel agencies I would say you have a reasonable case for action. At the very least “at the time”. Since taking him in for questioning and or to jail was not a reasonable solution to the problem that left war to remove him.

The only serious lies I saw during this whole thing would be that of his scientists to saddam, and saddams lies to inspectors (which in a strange turn of events turn out to be more truth than fiction)